Chapter 4: Hideout

Empress groaned and opened her eyes. A dark ceiling met her gaze, causing her to think she had returned to her own apartment outside of the game.

After a moment of confusion she realized she still had her gear. She was still in the game.

“Where am I?” she wondered, looking around the small, empty room in puzzlement. It was at that moment that the door to the room opened up.

“You’re awake! ~” a song-like voice rang out. A head of blonde hair fell in front of Vivian’s eyes.

“Who are you?” Empress asked in a panic, bolting upright.

As she sat upwards, she realized she didn’t feel any pain. She looked at her stomach in surprise. The bullet wound was gone.

“My name is Crescendo! ~” the blonde-haired girl sung angelically.

Empress winced. The girl had a good voice, but she was going to go crazy if she sung every sentence.

“Did you heal me?” Empress asked politely, determining that the girl wasn’t a threat.

“Nope! ~” Crescendo said.

“That was my friend, Healer.”

“Your friend’s alias is Healer?” Empress crinkled her nose in distaste.

“Yeah.” Crescendo admitted, not singing for once, “Pretty straightforward isn’t it?”

Empress nodded her agreement.

“Where are we?” she asked, gazing around.

“We’re in Northfront City. We’ve been waiting for your arrival for a long time now~” Crescendo smiled.

“You’ve been waiting for me?” Empress frowned.

“Yup, we’ve been watching the leaderboards closely. You’ve done a fantastic job maintaining first place for so long. We want you in our organization.”

“Who is ‘we’ and what organization are you talking about?”

Crescendo’s smile widened, “’We’ refers to a large portion of neutral players who are sick of the rampant tyranny created by the National Hero Association and the villains. We want to establish control over the four primary cities and regulate them.”

“You want to take control from the NHA?” Empress asked in surprise.

There were four main cities in the world of DoG Online. Northfront, Eastfront, Westfront, and Southfront City.

The cities were controlled by the National Hero Association in an attempt to staunch the flow of chaos resulting from the large number of superpower crimes.

“The NHA is only concerned about profit,” Crescendo sneered, “They don’t really care about the villain crime as long as they can make money from it. That’s why we want to take control.”

Empress shook her head. The group was ambitious, but Vivian had no desire to change the situation. There was a reason she chose the neutral faction.

Neutral players could garner both fame and notoriety, two stats that indicated a person’s status level in DoG Online. Villains could only gather notoriety and heroes could only gather fame.

In addition, there was no penalty for killing heroes or villains if a player was neutral. However, if a hero attacked another hero or a villain attacked another villain, it would give a drop in reputation points.

This was another reason why Empress was able to be number one on the kill leaderboard. She had more targets!

“I don’t want to join your group,” Empress said calmly.

Crescendo’s face turned ugly before rearranging itself into a smile.

“Very well,” she said seriously, “Then you have to leave.”

A man entered the room, and waved his hands towards Empress. Before she could react she felt space distort around her. She was being teleported!

“Remember,” Crescendo said, “If you ever change your mind, look for ‘The Eternal Path’~”

With a blink, Empress found herself in an alleyway. She shivered in fear. She felt she had narrowly escaped a dangerous situation.

Vivian sighed and checked her inventory, confirming that she still had one million credits. She needed to buy a hideout or else she wouldn’t last long in Northfront City.

She had to do some research first. After hunkering deep in the alley, she summoned her menu and pressed the logout button.

Huddled in her apartment, a clear-eyed Vivian sat at her computer. Now that she wasn’t absorbed with the leaderboards, she allowed herself to get some much needed rest.

She clicked her way to the beginner forums on DoG’s webpage.

The forum boards were in an uproar at the events that had occurred today. Numerous threads were created discussing her heist of Yoro Bank.

“I was there!” one comment read, “Empress single-handedly slaughtered hundreds of heroes. She ripped the bank up from the ground using telekinesis and robbed them blind!”

“I saw it too!” another comment followed, “The villains didn’t stand a chance. She blocked the simultaneous attacks of a thousand villains and slaughtered them all using chain lightning.”

Many of the comments on the boards were similar, causing Empress to burst out laughing.

It was fascinating how blown out of proportion the events were. Due to the excessive hype, DoG Online’s creator, Ganda Corp, issued a reward of 1000 notoriety to her, causing her to smile from ear to ear.

She now had plenty of reputation and money, she would be able to get a good head start in Northfront City.

She made her way to DoG’s wiki and pulled up a map of Northfront. Thousands of different locations were marked on the map. After using the search function, she found what she was looking for. There were dozens of hideout shops scattered across the map.

After finding the shops she wanted, she hopped back inside of her gaming capsule and logged back into the game.

Empress gazed at the empty shop. She had chosen this one carefully. It wasn’t very popular and had a strict confidentiality clause. She wouldn’t have to worry about anyone buying the location of her hideout.

She swaggered into the shop, casting her gaze upon the man who sat at the counter.

“Welcome! How can I help you?” the man asked jovially.

“I’m looking to buy a hideout.” Empress smiled.

The man nodded in response, reaching under his counter and pulling out a catalog.

“Here ya go,” he said, handing the catalog to her.

Empress flipped through it, noticing the many different hideouts that were available. There was everything from rundown buildings to volcanoes. She would have to choose carefully.

She was determined to choose something cheap and use the rest of her credits to buy power crystals to further improve her strength. However, a particular hideout caught her eye, causing her heart to pound.

It was a castle. The price tag was for one million credits exactly.

Empress couldn’t resist the urge. Every queen needed a castle.

“I’ll take this one!” she exclaimed, pointing to the castle.

The man raised his eyebrow in interest before nodding.

“Hand over the credits and I’ll transfer you the hideout information.”

Empress nodded, opening a trade window with the man. She inserted the credits and the man inserted a small blue pill.

Empress inspected it carefully before nodding in satisfaction. After completing the trade, she popped the pill into her mouth.

Instantly, memories of the hideout flooded into her mind.

When a person sold a hideout, they were required to condense all of their memories of the hideout into a pill, preventing them from revealing any secrets about it. It was one of the few ways secrecy could be entrusted.

Empress clapped her hands in excitement. She now had her own castle!